Brazil continues to experience significant patent examination delays, with average patent examinations for biopharmaceuticals taking longer than 10 years.

Patent applicants in Brazil experience some of the longest patent pendency times in the world.

Brazil must balance the need to increase access to essential medications and strengthen its innovation ecosystem. While joining the OECD will not guarantee improved healthcare or solve economic problems endured by millions of Brazilians, it is a start. Following OECD policy frameworks would streamline approval processes that deliver crucial treatments to patients more quickly.

When Colombia’s new government took office roughly one year ago, it assumed significant health care challenges: a growing non-communicable diseases footprint, a deteriorated innovation environment and access to the world’s most innovative medical breakthroughs in doubt.

Inclusive collaborations across the health care sector can improve diagnostics and care for cancer patients. Argentina recently took a step in this direction as it joined global research and data-sharing efforts that improve healthcare outcomes for cancer patients around the world.

Brazil’s recent drive towards openness through increased participation in organizations like the OECD presents a unique opportunity for improving its population’s livelihood and health. Aligning to world-leading standards in health care innovation and intellectual property rights can help Brazil increase patient access to innovative treatments and ultimately enhance their health care outcomes.

Attempts to break intellectual property rights go against the free market, pro-innovation principles that have delivered medical breakthroughs to Chile’s patients and strengthened its economy. The Piñera administration would be wise to put patients first and discard attempts to revert a successful healthcare innovation environment which provides quality treatments for Chile’s national health system. Otherwise, it risks reducing options for Chilean patients and depriving them access to world-leading medical advances.

Latin America’s leading industrial economies, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, should set the bar for innovation and intellectual property standards that best serve the region’s patients and national healthcare systems.

Una de las iniciativas de investigación de #Innovate4Health resalta una colaboración sin precedentes, entre universidades Argentinas y Cubanas, institutos investigativos y compañías del sector privado, que produjo la primera vacuna contra el cáncer de pulmón en el mundo: Vaxira.

One of the #Innovate4Health research initiatives highlights the groundbreaking collaboration between Argentine and Cuban universities, research institutes and companies, that developed the world’s first lung cancer vaccine: Vaxira. Empowering the creation of innovative medicines like Vaxira, allows patients suffering from lung cancer to, for the first time, manage the disease while leading productive lives.